2nd July 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Occupied Palestine
Today marks the two year anniversary of the brutal kidnap, torture and eventual murder of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The teenager was kidnapped in the Shufat neighbourhood of occupied Jerusalem by Ben David of the illegal settlement Geva Binyamin and two assailants on 2 July 2014, Abu Khdeir was then beaten, forced to drink gasoline and burnt alive.
The autopsy found that gasoline was poured down Abu Khdeir’s throat and that there was soot in his lungs which shows that he was still breathing as this attackers burnt him alive. The autopsy also found that he was repeatedly beaten over the head with a sharp object, most likely a tire iron or a wrench.
Two days prior to Abu Khdeir’s abduction the group attempted to kidnap a 7-year-old boy Moussa Zaloum although he was able to escape with the help of his mother. The family reported the attempted kidnapping to Israeli police although they did not investigate the incident.
Three days after the attack, Mohammed’s cousin, 15-year-old American citizen Tariq Abu Khdeir was detained and brutally beaten by Israeli border police, an event caught on camera, before being released.
Earlier this year, a relative of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 63 year old Coheir Abu Khdeir was also badly assaulted in an attack carried out in Shufat. When his family went to Israeli police they refused to take their complaint insisting that the 63-year-old would have to come to the police station himself.
On 2 July 2015 there was a peaceful demonstration held in commemoration for Mohammed Abu Khdeir which was violently dispersed by Israeli Forces. The Israeli Forces used pepper spray and tear gas on the non-violent demonstrators which included Palestinians, international activists and journalists.
Earlier this year, the ringleader of the attack Ben David was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 20 years while his two assailants, both minors at the time, were sentenced to life in prison and 21 years respectively.
Two years on we wish to remember Mohammed Abu Khdeir to ensure we don’t forget the tragedy of this brutal act of torture and murder.
27th October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Silwad, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday a funeral was held for 14-year-old Orwa Abd al-Hadi Hammad, shot dead by the Israeli military on Friday, in the small village of Silwad close to Ramallah.
Orwa was shot dead by Israeli forces on Friday, during a demonstration at the edge of the small village of Silwad. The demonstration was about the Israeli military occupying the edge of the village to protect a road used by Zionist settlers from the the illegal settlement of Ofra.
Orwa was a US citizen. His funeral was delayed until Sunday so his father would be able to travel from the United States to attend the funeral. The funeral procession consisted of thousands of men, waving flags and chanting through the narrow streets of Silwad, while carrying Orwa’s body on a stretcher. In the procession were parents of other children shot by the Israeli military. All shops in the town were closed and posters honoring the victim were posted everywhere.
The procession moved from the mosque to the funeral sight in the center of the village. At the end of the somber service the relatives’ grief turned into frustration towards the Israeli occupation and the loss of the young boy.
Later, young men gathered at the spot where Orwa was killed, near where the Israeli military base is placed on the edge of the village. As 50 – 100 mourners, among them relatives of the deceased, residents of the village and internationals, burned tires and chanted, the Israeli military began to fire rubber-coated steel bullets and many tear gas canisters.
After more than an hour the Israeli military withdrew, just before entering the center of the village. Four ambulances left the scene carrying people wounded by the rubber-coated steel bullets and overcome by tear gas inhalation.
10th September | Joe Catron | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
On Sunday evening, as the sun slipped behind the Mediterranean Sea, members of the Bakr family, a sprawling clan of fishermen in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp, gathered with hundreds of supporters on the beach next to the Gaza seaport.
Young relatives of four children killed by Israeli shelling while playing football on a beach in July play their game that was violently cut short, 7 September (Joe Catron)
Their assembly commemorated the lives of nine-year-old Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr, ten-year-old Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr, ten-year-old Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr and eleven-year-old Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr.
The Israeli munitions that ended their lives struck the beach directly behind a row of hotels which, in mid-July, housed many of the foreign reporters then present in Gaza.
Along with statements by members of their family and the painting of colorful murals at the site of the boys’ killings, the event also included a football match, intended to complete the one interrupted by the lethal blasts almost two months ago.
“It was never finished,” Bayan al-Zumaili of the Safadi Group, the youth organization that worked with the Bakr family to organize the event, told The Electronic Intifada. “So we decided to complete it with the survivors of the massacre.”
Al-Zumaili, a physician who graduated from the Islamic University of Gaza’s medical school two months ago, volunteered in the surgical department at al-Shifa hospital during Israel’s 51-day offensive against the Gaza Strip, which ended in an indefinite ceasefire on 26 August.
The killings of the Bakr boys in July drew broad attention not only because a single incident caused the deaths of four young relatives — a scenario repeated numerous times throughout the onslaught — but also because it took place so near to where so many journalists were staying.
Eyewitness accounts of the massacre by journalists like Sara Hussein of AFP, Peter Beaumont of The Guardian, Tyler Hicks of The New York Times, and William Booth of The Washington Post reached much larger audiences than first-hand reports of similar mass killings elsewhere.
On twitter
NBC briefly pulled from the Gaza Strip its correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin, who tweeted: “Minutes before they were killed by our hotel, I was kicking a ball with them.” NBC’s removal of their star foreign correspondent was attributed by many to his blunt coverage of Palestinian deaths on social media and was widely criticized by other journalists.
While many reporters witnessed the killings, some also helped evacuated three survivors from the beach and gave them first aid inside al-Deira hotel.
“They targeted us knowing that we were children, playing a game of football on the beach,” one survivor of Israel’s missile strikes, eleven-year-old Motasem Bakr, said Sunday. “The [armed] resistance was on the frontiers fighting them, not here playing football.”
“An Israeli officer did not like the idea of children playing,” he added.
“Israeli forces continue to target and kill children and civilians on a daily basis, making Israeli military statements claiming that these deaths are tragic mistakes simply meaningless,” DCI-Palestine executive director Rifat Kassis said in a statement the next day. “The death toll among children now stands at its highest point in five years.”
Along with two other survivors of the attack, Motasem joined three other boys from the Bakr family and six others from the devastated Shujaiya neighborhood, on the eastern edge of Gaza City, to complete the football match they had never finished on 16 July.
“In the place of the martyrs who couldn’t attend, we brought survivors of the Shujaiya massacre to complete the match for them,” al-Zumaili said.
Since the 26 August ceasefire, hard-hit areas like Shujaiya, Beit Hanoun and Khuzaa have at times resembled army encampments; their streets thick with tents erected by grieving families to host mourners and those offering their condolences.
As families mourn their losses, and injured Palestinians succumb to their injuries, Gaza’s ongoing process of collective grieving will also continue, sometimes in the somber reflection of mourning tents, sometimes in the simple joy of an evening football match on the beach.
29th July 2014 | Gaza Ministry of Health | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
The Ministry of Health Gaza is pained to express its deep sadness and outrage at the Israeli attacks on Gaza on our holy days of Eid al-Fitr.
In the last 24 hours, 120 people have been killed, bringing the total to 1,156.
Particularly distressing was the death in Al Bureij refugee camp of Diana Abu Jaber and her unborn baby only a week before his estimated date of delivery.
Diana’s home was struck by an F-16 airstrike.
“As it collapsed a concrete pillar fell on her,” reported Dr Kamal Khatab, Medical Superintendent of Al Aqsa Hospital. “A shell ripped her abdomen open, the unborn baby fell out and was hit in the head with shrapnel, and his brain matter was extruded. Both mother and baby died immediately.”
Dr Khatab added that Diana, in her mid-twenties, was one of 19 members of the same family to die in that airstrike, and there are still other family members missing.
The entrance to the Outpatient Clinic of Shifa Hospital in Gaza city was shelled yesterday afternoon, bringing the number of attacks on medical facilities to 34. Windows in the Medical Library were shattered, an exterior wall was partially destroyed, and several trees were severely damaged. It is pure good fortune that none of the displaced people sheltering in the outpatients area, or staff working in the library, were killed or injured.
“There is a deliberate strategy of attacking to kill Palestinians in two ways – one in their homes with bombs and bullets, and the other by depriving them of essential medical services,” observed Deputy Minister of Health Dr Yousef Abu Al-Rish.
Israeli airstrikes before dawn on the sole Gaza power plant destroyed fuel tanks, and put the plant out of production. This will have an immense impact on the provision of services in Gaza’s hospitals, and significantly contribute to a looming humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.
Despite numerous appeals by both Palestinian and international organisations to cease attacks on children and women, to cease attacks on medical facilities, and to cease attacks on civilian infrastructure
Israeli military strikes on civilian targets have not abated.
The Ministry of Health Gaza calls on the United Nations, the international community, human rights organisations, and all people of good conscience wherever they may be to act immediately to stop the genocide in Gaza.
In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Unlawful killing of two Palestinian teens outside Ofer – Video from Defense For Children International Palestine
Israeli forces fatally shot Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, on May 15 during clashes following a demonstration marking Nakba Day.
Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teens during clashes on Thursday outside the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, and Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Abu Daher, 16, were both fatally shot in the chest with live ammunition near Ofer military prison in the West Bank city of Beitunia. Both boys were transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah where they were later pronounced dead.
The boys were participating in a demonstration near Ofer military prison to mark Nakba Day and express solidarity with hunger striking prisoners currently held in administrative detention by Israel. The demonstration reportedly began peacefully and then turned violent when Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian youths, according to The New York Times.
Israeli forces killed Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Abu Daher, 16, on May 15 during clashes following a demonstration marking Nakba Day.
“Israeli forces continue to use excessive force and recklessly fire live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets on unarmed protesters, including children, killing them with impunity,” said Rifat Kassis, executive director of DCI-Palestine. “While Israel claims to open investigations into such incidents, they are not transparent or independent, and seldom result in a soldier being held accountable.”
Mohammad Abdullah Hussein al-Azzeh, 15, sustained a gunshot wound when he was hit with live ammunition in the back and left lung while taking part in the same demonstration. He is currently in stable condition at the Ramallah Medical Complex.
Palestinians across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip held marches on May 15 to commemorate the Nabka or “catastrophe”, which marks the forced displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian homeland in 1948.
Mohammad Abdullah Hussein al-Azzeh, 15, sustained a gunshot wound in the back and left lung during the same demonstration.
The use of live ammunition by soldiers on unarmed Palestinian civilians, including children, has been a recent area of concern to human rights groups. In February, Amnesty International released a report finding that the Israeli army uses reckless force throughout the West Bank.
An Israeli army spokesperson said that the killings were under investigation and claimed that only rubber-coated metal bullets, stun grenades and tear gas were used by Israeli forces at the time of the incident, not live ammunition, according to Haaretz.
The deaths on Thursday raise the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in 2014 to four, according to data collected by DCI-Palestine. Over 1,400 Palestinian children have been killed as a result of Israeli military and settler presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2000.
In March, Israeli forces shot and killed Yousef al-Shawamrah, 14, with live ammunition in the southern West Bank near his village of Deir al-Asal al-Fawqa. He was shot while looking for thistle in an area of land belonging to the village that now sits on the other side of Israel’s separation barrier. As he and two friends crossed through an open area, soldiers fired live ammunition toward the boys, hitting Yousef in the hip and back.
In December 2013, Wajih Wajdi al-Ramahi, 15, from Jalazoun refugee camp north of the West Bank city of Ramallah was fatally shot with live ammunition fired by an Israeli soldier. Documenting the killing, DCI-Palestine found that Wajih had been shot in the back from a distance of 150-200 meters (about 500 feet).
The Israeli military’s own regulations dictate that live ammunition must be used “only under circumstances of real mortal danger,” but the regulations are not enforced and frequently ignored by Israeli soldiers, according to research by DCI-Palestine and a recent report by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
